It came as no surprise that the home console edition of Planet 51: The Game failed to impress. The gaming world may have become accustomed to slapdash film tie-ins, but when they're based on children's fare the result can be much more painful. Fortunately for fans of the source material, it wasn't the worst offender in this respect - although one could only call it inoffensive at best. Bearing this in mind, it would be easy to dismiss the Nintendo DS version out of hand, but let's not bury it before it's dead.

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The DS edition has a lot in common with its home platform counterpart, and in this regard, it falls into many of the same pitfalls. Gameplay is slow paced, many of the tasks are menial, and while it doesn't suffer from exactly the same control issues as its bigger brother, the vehicle handling isn't as smooth as it should have been.

Throughout the early missions, the player takes control of an alien kid named Lem. Unlike the PS3 version, the entire duration is spent behind the wheel of a vehicle. If the home console iteration is Grand Theft Auto for minors, then perhaps the DS edition could be considered The Need For Speed for the same age group, although it does take the sandbox approach to an extent.

Lem's driving test functions as a training stage to allow you to get to grips with how the standard cars function. This was something of a strange decision on the developer's part as it isn't until later in the game that you get to control a car. Much of the early missions take place on a hover bike, and as there is plenty of hand holding to get you up to speed with its mechanics, so the training stage is essentially pointless.

The bike veers along at a moderate pace, never quite getting your adrenaline pumping despite being equipped with a turbo booster. The game's supposedly open world consists of a massive network of roads, with missions dotted about along the embankments like pit stops. Much of your time will be spent plodding along said roads, following the radar toward the next mission. Missions themselves are varied, but consist of tedious tasks such as chasing down a comic thief or delivering newspapers. Many of the objectives and side quests incorporate use of the system's touch screen, but juggling stylus control with the D-pad is awkward. Developers should take note that just because they can add touch screen technology to their games, it doesn't mean that they should.

Many of the early missions can be played through blindfolded, and although you will encounter difficulty spikes, there isn't much on offer in the way of challenge. When you do meet obstacles, it's for all of the wrong reasons. Cars accelerate automatically, and the shoulder buttons are used to bank left and right. It takes no more than a tap of L or R to clear the entire width of the road, and given that the highways appear to have been designed so an inordinate amount of traffic gets in your way, you'll find yourself enduring a frustrating number of collisions.

As you might have guessed, the CGI video and voiceovers from the console version did not make it into the DS edition. Given the limitations of the hardware in question, it can hardly be criticised for this... quite the opposite in fact. The voice acting was lazy, while cut scenes lifted directly from the movie served only to highlight the inadequacies of the in-game animation. With the video sequences giving way for colourful comic book style stills that require no loading time at all, the DS iteration has no such limitations. In-game graphics don't blaze any trails, but they are adequate and relatively free of the framerate and pop-up issues that plague the console edition.

Like the other iterations of Planet 51: The Game, the DS version is by no means a poor offering. The system plays host to a vast library of children's titles, and this certainly isn't one of the worst. However, if the developer is guilty of one thing, it's a lack of ambition. There's nothing here that even its target audience won't have seen before, meaning any thrills are likely to be ephemeral. With its snail pace, uninteresting gameplay and cumbersome controls, this is one space race that isn't worth wasting your energy on.